Never was Soul and Body better joyn’d, A Mansion worthy of so blest a Mind; See but the Shadow of her beauteous face, The pretious minitures of every Grace, There one may still such Charms behold, That as Idolaters of old, The works of their own hands ador’d, And Gods which they themselves had made implor’d; _Jove_ might again descend below, And, with her Wit and Beauty charm’d, to his own Image bow. But oh, the irrevocable doom of Nature’s Laws! How soon the brightest Scene of Beauty draws! Alas, what’s all the glittering Pride Of the poor perishing Creatures of a day, With what a violent and impetuous Tide, E’er they’re flow’d in their glories ebb away? The Pearl, the Diamond and Saphire must Be blended with the common Pebbles dust, And even _Astræa_ with all her sacred store, Be wreckt on Death’s inevitable Shore, Her Face ne’er seen and her dear Voice be heard no more. And wisely therefore e’er it was too late, She has revers’d the sad Decrees of Fate, And in deep Characters of immortal Wit, So large a _memorandum’s_ writ, That the blest memory of her deathless Name Shall stand recorded in the Book of Fame; When Towns inter’d in their own ashes lie, And Chronicles of Empires die, When Monuments like Men want Tombs to tell Where the remains of the vast ruines fell. _To the excellent_ ASTRÆA. We all can well admire, few well can praise Where so great merit does the Subject raise: To write our Thoughts alike from dulness free, On this hand, as on that from flattery; He who wou’d handsomly the _Medium_ hit, Must have no little of _Astræa’s_ Wit. Let others in the noble Task engage, Call you the _Phoenix_, wonder of the Age, The Glory of your Sex, the Shame of ours, Crown you with Garlands of Rhetorick Flowers; For me, alas, I nothing can design, } To render your soft Numbers more divine, } Than by comparison with these of mine: } As beauteous paintings are set off by shades, And some fair Ladies by their dowdy Maids; Yet after all, forgive me if I name One Fault where, _Madam_, you are much to blame, To wound with Beauty’s fighting on the square, But to o’ercome with Wit too is not fair; ‘Tis like the poison’d _Indian_ Arrows found, For thus you’re sure to kill where once you wound. _J.W._ _To Madam_ A. Behn _on the publication of her Poems._